I just registered for my next course: Civil War Command and Leadership. Here’s a quick summary: “a study of national, theater, and operational command structures of the Union and Confederacy, the leadership styles of key military leaders on both sides, and the evolution of command and control in the war. Major themes include the relationship between the commanders in chief and the generals who led the armies in the field, the relationships between the generals themselves, and the ways in which the relationships described above either served to facilitate or debilitate the causes those commanders served.”

His point that the Industrial Revolution had the “immediate consequence of making the Northern generals less inclined to deal out destruction” was an epiphany. So much of what I’ve read until now points to the advantages of the North because of more and better “everything.” That this affluence in war-making capacity contributed to the early lack of engagement of the North’s generals now makes perfect sense.

“They could secure material so easily that they refused to move until they had received more than they needed — after which they were often so heavily laden the could not move.” (Williams, 50 – 51)

Likewise, the “poverty of Southern resources” explains the scrappy nature of the generals of the Confederacy.

The lesson is timeless and as important to business – my field of battle – as the military.

I confess to being impressed by the extent to which Lincoln became an able strategist by the mid-point of the war. No doubt contributing to this was Halleck’s liaise-faire attitude. Lacking a strong military leader and much in the way of battle successes, Lincoln obviously felt compelled to step in and fill the strategic voids for his armies.

I was also struck by the characteristics that Lincoln valued and devalued in his generals. The lesson would serve many aspiring to leadership today. The takeaway?

Emulate Grant!

Don’t whine.
Do the best you can with what you’ve been given.
Communicate minimally but effectively “up.”
Respect and follow the leadership of the man in charge when it is offered. Don’t argue with him excessively.
Don’t aspire to take his job, at least overtly.
Don’t criticize or blame others. Respect your subordinates enough to let them do their jobs.
Do not overly criticize them either. Control yourself and your emotions.
Be decisive.
Be manically focused on getting the job at hand done.
Be informed by the past but fully engaged in the realities of the present.

For Grant and Lincoln, this latter point meant something more than merely implementing Jominian tactics. It appears that together, they evolved toward the modern notion of war as “total” in Clausewitzian terms. Is it possible that only Lincoln saw this truth in the war’s earliest years? I say yes.

As the creator and first commander of that Army [the Army of the Potomac], he had claims to loyalty which his charisma and the appeal of his Peninsula campaign’s strategy intensified. Even after he had left the command, his position of formal leadership, he continued to exercise great informal influence. This often took the form of the officers of the Army of the Potomac displaying hostility to the secretary of war and an unshakable allegiance to the strategy of the Peninsula campaign. No successor in command could ever displace him as the army’s informal leader, a situation which made it difficult for every subsequent commander and limited the ability of the president ad the general in chief to enjoy any widespread, deep-rooted support.

Source: PBS: http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/map3.html#

In like fashion, he suggests that Lee uprooted Johnston’s memory because of the three campaigns he conducted in four months and put Lee in the position of informal and formal leader of the Army of Northern Virginia.